The Great Gatsby (original 1925; edition 1999)

http://www.girllostinabook.com/2013/05/review-great-gatsby-by-f-scott.html ( )

The last half dozen pages ("One of my most vivid memories . . .") are worth the whole rest of the book.

Three stars? For The Great Gatsby? But it's F. Scott Fitzgerald!

Exactly.

Perhaps if I had read this classic in high school, as I should have, I would have been more impressed, but reading it now, spurred on by the new movie I haven't seen, left me underwhelmed. It is an unlovely story about unlovely characters. I don't have to like characters, but I have to at least find them interesting. Daisy and Tom and Gatsby are not. To paraphrase T. S. Eliot, they have measured out their lives in coffee spoons. All the tragedies are of their own making and not especially interesting.

The writing, perhaps stellar in its day, seems stilted and sometimes unnecessarily convoluted now. The “old sport” stuff got old fast, and annoying. The book is short, around 160 pages in my copy, and still I was glad when it was done. At least now I can check it off my “I should read that someday” list. ( )

I've had "The Great Gatsby" on my shelves for a while now, I got it because it is on the "1001 books you must read before you die list". I hadn't read it yet, but I had to now (even putting down the book I was reading to read this one quickly). Why? Because Stephen Colbert's book club has it as its first book. I did not want the book to get spoiled by the show, and I did want to understand the jokes, so I read it.

It is the story of Jay Gatsby, living near New York in the 1920's. Told by his neighbor Nick, it takes place one summer in which Gatsby's life takes a dramatic turn, and Nick is sobered up to what life in the 1920's means for him, and for other people (I'm really trying not to give anything away here).

The book is pretty short, and the story is told pretty quickly. It is a pretty nice story to read, and the descriptions of (wealthy) life in the 1920s are detailed, but for me, this book wasn't that special. Maybe it is better when compared to other books written in that period, but for me, reading it it now, it was just ok. I give it three out of five stars. ( )

The Great Gatsby is hailed as one of the great American novels. The writing is beautiful. The plot lacks depth much like the lives of most superficial Americans. Fitzgerald's characters are living the so-called "American Dream" and one is living a lie. Fitzgerald shows us how the American dream can quickly turn into a nightmare.

F. Scott Fitzgerald showed how cold and heartless people can be no matter how close they are to you. He also showed how complex and chaotic love can be. Overall, The Great Gatsby is not a complicated story , it's pretty simple which added to its elegance.

Since finishing Gatsby, I'm still wondering how Fitzgerald wrote a character that was so charming and captivating but yet not ostentatious. Jay Gatsby was focused. He played his cards right and patiently to get what he wanted. Gatsby was hypnotizing. The hypnotic trance that Gatsby put on most people caused them to overlook the fact that the details of his life did not really add up. He was vague and intriguing.

I have never read a more perfect narrator since "L" from Love by Toni Morrison until Nick Carraway the narrator of The Great Gatsby. Nick's observations were mainly objective but he too was hypnotized by Gatsby. Nick had "hope" in Gatsby but didn't like him very much. Nick was thrust into this circle of friends and lovers and ended up being the most dependable of them all.

The driving force of the novel was Jay Gatsby's love for Daisy Buchanan. Both Jay and Tom, Daisy's husband, wanted control over Daisy's love. Daisy was the most dull of all the characters in my opinion. She was aloof and uncertain. She had this plantation mistress quality about her that I detested. I equally despised her husband Tom. Daisy was also a mother which was easily forgotten since she didn't possess any motherly qualities. The quality of Daisy's voice was mentioned several times throughout the novel but in the end it was pretty much silenced. It seemed as if Fitzgerald lost Daisy in the climax of the novel.

I loved Gatsby. He is my new literary crush. The ending came too fast for me. I'm still looking for closure on Daisy's part. Nick was the most endearing of them all. I now hate the term, "old sport." ( )